Right Places

Ashley Graham has a flat stomach.

Ashley Graham is a plus size model.

Ashley Graham has changed the way I see others,

the fashion industry and

myself.

But Ashley Graham has a flat stomach.

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"You have curves in all the right places"

You've heard the line before -- told to you, sung in a song, said in a movie...

But what does that really mean?

As a mid-size girl, not quite plus size, I've learned to fall in love with the curves I've carried on and off throughout the years.

With time, our bodies change and fluctuate. My careful inventory of curves, muscle tone, freckles and wrinkles ebbs and flows as time molds my figure and features.

Be that of age, exercise, pregnancy, stress, heartache or love - our bodies find ways to outwardly tell our stories.

My curves tell my story.

But Ashley Graham has a flat stomach...

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Ashley is probably the most famous plus-size model. She is known as the face of a more accepting, body positivity movement in a once only stick-thin industry.

Her body has justified mine in so many beautiful ways. Her curves have given freedom to my own.

Because I saw Ashley, I finally was able to see myself.

Ashley Graham has a flat stomach.

But I do not.

---

Are my curves in the wrong places?

A past version of myself may have thought so. I may have said so. Or I may have devoted my life to countless hours in the gym acting as so.

But something I've come to realize, in this new year, is that:

what's "right" about her's is not what's "wrong" about mine.

Her body, her story, is not mine.

My body, my story, is not hers.

And isn't that the most beautiful thing?

By taking control over how we see our bodies,

by repositioning our curves in our minds to be in all the right places,

by accepting the story our bodies tell...

We'll soon find that there are no "wrong" places.

Ashley Graham has a flat stomach.

But I do not.

And isn't that the most beautiful thing?

XX

@laneygipson